It may be 1984 all over again

This is not a new era in politics. We have seen something like this before, in the election of 1984. It worked out poorly that time. .

Jessie Jackson

Guest Post by Thad Guyer

Bold, progressive politics is not new in America. In 1984 Jessie Jackson articulated policies that combined Bernie Sanders style economic progressivism with condemnation of racial, religious, and gender prejudice. He condemned white male privilege. Jessie Jackson brought together a coalition of white progressives, feminists, people of color, and the LGBTQ community. His speeches would sound familiar and energizing at a rally of Sanders, Harris, Warren, or any other progressive candidate today.

He lost the nomination. He supported and campaigned for a presumably "safer" choice, an experienced, conventional politician, a former vice president, a popular choice. Walter Mondale focused on economic justice. The rich had stacked the tax code. The rich had rigged campaign funding. The working and middle class were being squeezed and impoverished. Mondale had a very progressive message.

Reagan called it" socialism."

Democrats had a one-two punch. They were the remedy for both unjust social privilege and economic privilege against the incumbent Republican president.

Thad Guyer sends Democrats a warning. 

Thad Guyer:

"Democrats’ Civil War Against “White Male Privilege” a Legacy for Trump in 2020

Democrats are the victims of our own rage and political virtue.  

Thad Guyer

Nancy Pelosi is struggling unsuccessfully to get impeachment and the Green New Deal off screen one, but our 2020 hopefuls will have none of it.  “Anyone can beat Trump”, they suggest. In this so-called political era the woman and candidates of color, the left is becoming incensed that every poll shows two white men leading by double digits, with yet a third flashing his star power.  History tells us that supporters of Harris, Booker, Klobuchar, and Warren are about to do and say whatever they must to prevent this victory of “white male privilege” by Sanders, Biden or Beto, no matter how bitter or divisive, or ultimately self-destructive it may be.  It is, after all, our Democratic party legacy.

Activists will soon debut our 1968 legacy-- show our political rage by revolting against our party, and later do it chaotically and violently if our anger is not diffused. By the time of Nixon’s reelection bid in 1972, our heated demands for youth liberation, anti-racism, and feminism came into perfect phase with Jane Fonda’s anti-aircraft photo supporting Ho Chi Minh’s socialist dream.  Trump is now taking obvious pages from Nixon and Reagan— to wit, the white middle class likes neither socialism nor being told their achievements are tainted by white privilege. Jesse Jackson’s 1983-84 

"Socialist"

“Rainbow Coalition” of Blacks, Hispanics, the poor, LGBTQ, and white progressives started on a positive note, but in the heat of the primaries got very bitter over things like reparations for slave decedents, disparate incarceration rates, and a nasty row over anti-Semitic remarks about Blacks vs. Jews, and of course Louis Farrakhan. Sound familiar?  By the time of the 1984 convention, the white establishment was terrorized that the Rainbow Coalition would make Walter Mondale unelectable by preventing him from credibly moving back to the center.   Mondale didn’t want to be saddled with the highly polarizing Rainbow rhetoric, so he pushed that Reagan was guilty of being "of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich."  He pushed wealth redistribution by big increases in welfare, food stamps, public housing, and even tried to give Medicaid a cross-class appeal with calls for universal health care.  

Mondale issued a platform brochure almost indistinguishable from the Democrat’s demands now in 2018-19.  (Take a look at it: https://goo.gl/oYvCCz).  Reagan, of course, went right for the jugular of Democratic “socialism”, accusing us of class baiting against the rich which would cause capital flight and job loss, and require massive new taxation to pay the bill for our dream platform.  "Let's tell the truth. Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did." My chest swelled with pride at Mondale’s truth telling, as do Bernie supporter with their proud calls for a socialism that they just know America is ready for.  Trump already has socialism and the big tax bill for it front and center of his projected $1 billion war chest.

But in my opinion, it was the alienating, bitter race/white privilege rhetoric during the primaries that stuck us in a point of no return.  Jackson ascribed an inverse theory of racial doom:  Democrats lost because we “had pandered too much to white men”.  (See, https://goo.gl/VzDu5y).  The convention floor was relieved at Jackson’s concession speech, but knew that the following eloquence might be coming too late: “We are much too intelligent, *** much too victimized by racism, sexism, militarism, and anti-Semitism, much too threatened as historical scapegoats to go on divided one from another.” (See,  https://goo.gl/Rcw46x).  

History tells us Jackson was wrong about Democrats being “too intelligent” to self-destruct, and Trump knows it.  It’s our legacy after being traumatized by authoritarian presidents—Nixon, Reagan and now Trump."